The hardest part of writing humor is finding a topic that hasn't already been used more times than the only back scratcher at the Institute of Very Itchy People. Ideally, you want a situation that makes you smile even before the humor has been added. If you start with a fresh and inherently funny situation, you're halfway home. [...] If a topic makes you gag, or clench your buns, or laugh, or sigh, or retch -- or react physically in any way -- you have a winner.

Primarily we write the show to entertain ourselves. Sometimes I recognize a joke that reminds me of something that I would've busted up at as a kid. I'm happy when I see those kinds of jokes. Because the show is for kids more than anyone else, but most of the time we are just trying to crack ourselves up and trying not to worry about much other than that.

When writing for other comedians, someone once told me, “I want to make it my own.” I’d say, “Look, the jokes are written. The relationships are written. First, do it as written. Later you can make it your own.” A lot of people don’t realize that without a valley, there is no peak. Without information, there is no joke. You’ve got to set things up.

Comedy is a lot harder to do if you don’t go to the mean place. The cheapest laugh you can get is an insult or snarky comment, so if you take that off the table you have to write smarter.

Here's the other big secret of comedy: the audience writes most of it. You kind of give them what you think is funny, and they "grade" your work, second to second. [...] "Good word", "bad word".

Stop dying. Am trying to write a comedy.

To me, my approach is the most sensible. You're a comic. Therefore you want to get laughs. How do you get the most laughs in an hour? Tell short jokes. And don't say boom boom at the end. Just let the audience laugh then tell another joke. It's the shortest route to where you want to go.

Comedy is quite different to anything else – the most important thing is getting a laugh, and it’s a technical skill. You can easily kill a laugh by coming in too soon or with a different expression, so in a way it’s much harder work than drama, because with drama you just get into the script and that’s it! And the more you’re into the script, the more convincing you’ll be.

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don’t really think of myself as "writing humor." I’m simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious. Here’s the thing. Most of what we witness in life is too complex to take in whole. Because of this we unconsciously edit what we see, select what to really record and what to ignore, which is why people who look at the same thing don’t necessarily see the same thing...Comic writers don’t so much invent funny things as strip away the distractions, the impediments to laughter.

I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny.

So if I may give a word of advice to any young writer who, despite the odds, wants to take a shot at being funny, it is this: Steal. Steal an idea that you know is good, and try to reproduce it in a setting that you know and understand. It will become sufficiently different from the original because you are writing it, and by basing it on something good, you will be learning some of the rules of good writing as you go along. Great artists may merely be “influenced by” other artists, but comics “steal” and then conceal their loot.

The dramatist is fascinated by the inner life, the passions and sins, madness and dreams of the human heart. But not the comedy writer. He fixes on the social life - the idiocy, arrogance, and brutality in society. The comedy writer singles out a particular institution that he feels has become encrusted with hypocrisy and folly, then goes on the attack. Often we can spot the social institution under assault by noting the film's title.

Script in television is easier: you can study it and do your homework. When doing “Kim’s,” I’m often three days ahead of schedule, learning my lines and making choices because I have the luxury of an almost complete script in front of me. It’s different from doing a television show that’s improvised and ad-libbed; basically what you are saying is predicated by what the competitors do. As a host, you have to think about so many different things because there are so many different moving parts—not only technically being aware of where the cameras are, but also reacting to what you are given by the competitors and making it seem effortless is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life!

For humor to work, it must be original. It's easy to create original humor -- or anything else original -- if you follow my formula. [...] Identify someone who has more creative talent than you do, then try to imitate that person exactly. If you're like me, you can depend on your lack of talent to make your imitation look nothing like the source. Over time, you'll drift even further from the source of your theft, thus becoming "original."